Merry Christmas in November

Tonight our town had its annual Christmas parade. I swear, every year it gets earlier and earlier!

Bob was rather annoyed because he didn't want to go out and about. However, he was a good sport. We enjoyed free coffee put out by a church, and bought three chocolate chip bars from them to help the coffee go down. Thomas had to pass on the free cider because he doesn't care for it.

The parade was funny! The first five floats drove by SO fast you could barely read who they represented. Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally the rest of the parade caught up.

Thomas scored a lot of candy.

I just have to talk about something, though. There was a family to the left of us. The mom was standing by Thomas. She had a daughter, about five years old. The daughter was standing about six people down from us by her grandparents. She was a cutie. So anyway, as the candy was being thrown to groups of kids as it always is, it was thrown to Thomas, who was the only kid for about 15 adults. He bent down to pick up his candy and so did the mom standing next to him. She scooped a great majority of it up, turned to Thomas and handed him one piece. She then declared the rest was for her daughter.

Now you have to know Thomas, but if there were a little child standing next to him, he'd probably give them 3/4 of the candy he picked up. He's very generous. I figured the little girl didn't get candy thrown to her. So the snarky mom that I am, I started watching. Every time Thomas had candy thrown to him and he was picking it up, I looked down at that mom's daughter. She was getting candy thrown to her, too. She was picking it up and putting it in the bag her grandma was holding. Yet her mom continued to grab Thomas' candy -- for her daughter, don't you know. I can't believe I wrote "don't you know." I am turning into a Minnesotan!

I'm mean. I pulled Thomas aside and told him he needed to be more aggressive. I told him that the candy is for kids. He was worried about the little girl and didn't mind sharing his candy. I told him I'd been watching and she got candy every time he did. So I pushed him off the sidewalk and onto the curb. Literally. I said, "If you want candy, you get the candy." He's not an aggressive child, so this is against his grain. However, he did it. They'd throw the candy to him and he'd grab to his left first, where the mom was standing, and then to his right. Momma backed off and let Thomas have his fair share.

After a few times candy was passed out, the mom changed her tactics. She then started saying, "This mom wants candy, won't you give a mom some candy, too?" So they'd give to Thomas and hand her a piece or two.

That made the parade very interesting to me. I love watching people in action. Here was a woman very well dressed, and her husband and daughter were, too. The grandparents looked affluent. So it was fun trying to figure out why she needed my son's candy.

I just had to share my snarkiness. It was a fun parade. And thankfully it was in the 40s. We have gone to the Christmas parade in the past when it was 10 degrees out. This was much more fun.

As we drove home, all the neighborhood had their Christmas decorations up and lights on. Wow, we're behind the times. We don't decorate until after Thanksgiving.

Ho, Ho, Ho